An enlightening visit to Chattanooga 

      

Before I visited there this week, all I really knew about Chattanooga, TN was that Glen Miller did a song about its Choo Choo in the 1940s and Union and Confederate forces had a few intense dust-ups over its control in the 1860s.

My Chattanooga ignorance was wide ranging:

•  I didn’t know that one of its nicknames is Gig City because it has the fastest Internet connection in the Western Hemisphere.

•  I didn’t know it had a significant and beautiful monument to a Native American abuse called the Trail of Tears Water Steps

•  I didn’t know that it converted its massive and beautiful 1908 train station into a hotel/resort where visitors can stay in authentic restored Victorian era train cars and take a free electric shuttle ride downtown, and

•  I didn’t know that the grand old city gave us Samuel L. Jackson, Bessie Smith, Jim Nabors and Hugh Beaumont (the guy who played Beaver Cleaver’s even keeled dad on Leave it to Beaver) along with a host of athletes, country singers and politicians like former Senator/former White House Chief of Staff/Watergate investigator Howard Baker.

I learned all these things and more when I set out to merely visit the Civil War battlefield I had always heard about called “Lookout Mountain.” I followed Siri’s instructions and began an ascent up a winding two-lane road to the top of Lookout Mountain passing a tourist stop called Ruby Falls.  I didn’t visit although I since learned that it is a truly beautiful subterranean spot on the mountainside.

Passing through what appears as a typical residential neighborhood on the mountaintop, I ended up at the tip of the mountain where the US Army corps of Engineers had erected a castle-like stonewall around the grounds of the major battle site.  A National Park Service Ranger gave a rousing talk explaining the significance of the city in the Union’s drive to quash the Confederates on their home ground and how the cannon atop Lookout Mountain helped enforce a confederate siege of the city after it became occupied by the Union. He explained a series of Chattanooga battles.

Then he explained how wacky personality conflicts on both sides influenced the eventual outcome of the follow up battle on Missionary Ridge.  The Union won both encounters and effectively opened the door for Sherman’s March to the Sea that broke the back of the Confederacy.  So, the battles around Chattanooga spelled the real beginning of the end of the war.

After the descent from Lookout Mountain, I did a quick drive around downtown Chattanooga.  It’s a very modern city with newer buildings dominating the skyline.  There were a few older buildings and converted warehouses preserving the look of the past along with the earlier mentioned train station.  I also found an unusual building that now houses a funky brew pub.

The city also features the huge Tennessee Aquarium, a collection of art and history museums and some institutions of higher education. It was a quick but enlightening visit to the city.  I’m glad I did it and I would recommend a visit for anyone interested in history, oceanography, natural beauty and trains.